Note 68 — Chapter VI

That in the impenetrable forests of the Gauts there are wild elephants, is well known; but the people on the sea-coast content themselves with those of Ceylon, which are more docile, and easier to be tamed.—It may be readily seen by the wild buffaloes that this is the original country of these animals, which were first brought from India ta Italy in the time of Agilulph king of Lombardy, between the years 591 and 616.—The deer mentioned by the author form probably more than one kind. India produces, 1st, the Cervus Axis L. or the spotted deer, which is somewhat larger than our fallow deer. 2d, The porcine deer, Cervus Porcinus L. brown with round white spots, and from two feet four inches to three feet and a half in height. 3d, The elk, Cervus Alce L. Professor Zimmerman, however, in his Zoological Geography, does not allow the elk, or rein-deer, to be an inhabitant beyond the 50th degree of north latitude; but the former has been bold enough to overstep the boundaries which he has drawn on his chart, and has penetrated to the woody, marshy, solitary valleys of India. See Essais philosophiques sur les Moeurs de divers Animaux étrangers, par Foucher D’Obsonville, p. 115. In the same work much information may be obtained respecting the black and white kinds of apes, which inhabit the Indian forests in flocks of thousands.—The real Indian striped (not spotted) tyger, which is from nine to ten feet in length, and from four to four and a half in height, is not common even in India, and is to be found only in the thickest forests. He gives place to no animals but the lion, elephant, and rhinoceros.—The Indian parrots are, in a literal sense, almost innumerable, for every traveller brings home new kinds to Europe. The old Grecian name ψιττακη, seems to be of Egyptian origin: Π-ϹΙΤΤΑΚΗ. The Π is an article: the Germans, therefore, have omitted it, and converted the word into Sittich. F.